Minor S. Sims states that his father, Thomas Sims, died intestate in 1838, leaving a personal estate consisting of several slaves and some debts. At the time of the elder Sims’s death, the slaves, whom Minor Sims describes as “family negroes,” were in Mississippi. In 1839, William F. Sims, one of Thomas's sons, qualified as administrator of the estate. William’s appointment was revoked in 1840, and his brother, Thomas Sims, took over. In 1841, the probate judge of Lafayette County, Mississippi, learned that Thomas Sims was about to remove the slaves from the state. The local sheriff was ordered to seize the slaves and safely keep them; however, Thomas Sims had already removed the slaves to South Carolina, where he sold two of them to John Caldwell. The two slaves, a mother and her son, are now in the possession of either Caldwell or L. H. Trevet. Minor S. Sims is now administrator of the estate and, as such, is responsible for payment of the estate debts. He is also one of the heirs to the estate and one of the securities on the bond given by his brother Thomas upon being appointed estate administrator in 1840. Minor Sims has now come to South Carolina, in his triple capacity, to recover the slaves. He therefore prays that Caldwell and Trevet be compelled to return the slaves to the estate and to account for the value of their hires since the purchase.
Result: Dismissed.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
